ATHENS  Conquer, then comfort. Repel, then rebuild. This was Michael Phelps' swim program all along, at least since the moment his rival and friend, Ian Crocker, cost him a shot at Summer Games history, not to mention a million bucks.

Forget the history. Consider what you might do to a neighbor, an acquaintance, or even a spouse who ripped up that winning lottery ticket you were ready to cash for a cool million.

Would you forgive? Would you forget?

Would you give that neighbor, friend or spouse your place on an Olympic relay team?

Phelps is 19, and he handles himself in the pool the way another 19-year-old, LeBron James, handles himself on the court. But this was way beyond the call of a young phenom's duty to God, country and team.

By swimming his 400 freestyle relay leg as if Rulon Gardner were strapped to his back, Ian Crocker destroyed Phelps' chance to tie Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in one Olympics and to grab Speedo's offer of a seven-figure bonus. Phelps paid him back with interest last night, roaring from way, way behind to beat Crocker in the 100 butterfly by four hundredths of a second — a comeback the equal of Yanks-Red Sox, circa 1978.

Phelps destroyed his destroyer, and everyone was prepared to leave it at that. He tied Spitz's second-tier record of four individual golds earned in Munich, and Spitz was in the stands Friday night holding up four fingers for Phelps to see, the two of them speaking a language only the great ones speak.

An easy angle to go with, made easier by the cute story of how Phelps had taped Crocker's picture to his bedroom wall after Crocker beat him in last year's world championships. Phelps put up the picture and then ripped it down, but no, he wouldn't stomp on it.

He'd frame it and offer it as a gift to the silver medalist.

"I was willing to give him another chance," Phelps said.

Another chance to make up for racing in reverse in a relay that could've left Phelps with six gold medals this morning, not five.

"It's a huge gift that is difficult to accept," Crocker said. "But it makes me want to go out and tear up the pool (tonight)."

Of course, there's no way this offer would've been made had Phelps been sitting on a chance to tie or pass Spitz. It doesn't matter that Phelps will earn whatever medal Crocker and the boys haul in; his appearance in the qualifier guaranteed him an equitable piece of the medley relay pie. Matching or passing Spitz while sitting in the stands wouldn't have played well on NBC.

No, that wouldn't have been the American way.

And it's easy for the cynic to assume Phelps was nudged into this decision by an agent or coach or marketeer fixing to package and sell the teen wonder as a selfless water god.

"We came into the meet as a team," Phelps did say, "and we're going to leave it as a team."

But maybe, just maybe, Phelps gave Crocker his locker because he simply felt bad for a guy who'd been run down by a severe sore throat. Before he failed to get out of his own 100 freestyle heat, Crocker swam his brutal 50.05 in the freestyle relay, sending Phelps into the pool with the Americans in dead last.

"If someone had told me Crocker was going to go that slow," said Eddie Reese, the U.S. coach, "there's no way I would have believed it. You can't go that slow...."

Maybe Phelps read that quote and winced. Maybe he decided right then and there that he would avenge last year's loss to Crocker in the 100 fly, and then send him down a sweet path of redemption.

"I am speechless," said Crocker, who choked back tears when told of Phelps' gesture.

"It's the right thing to do," the winner said.

Phelps did torture Crocker first, make no mistake about that. After he made the turn, all Phelps saw of Crocker were his feet. With 30 meters to go, Phelps was still a half body-length behind.

But then Crocker felt the chill. He heard the terrifying music and suddenly, Reese said, there appeared "the little shark from Jaws."

Phelps plowed through the water, creating a steamliner's worth of waves. He kept closing and closing until he and Crocker hit the wall simultaneously, then whipped around their heads to check the board.

"Hands down, yeah," Phelps said when someone asked if this was his greatest finish. "That's like a dream come true. That race was like something I've dreamed about every single day."

Phelps has seven medals in all. Seven Olympic medals four years after looking like such a lost Summer Games boy.

"If somebody said this when he was fifth in the 200 fly in 2000," Reese said, "we'd all bet our house and one child on it that it wouldn't happen."

We would've all made the same bet against Phelps putting his fate back in Crocker's hands. Phelps has a chance to tie the record of eight medals earned in one Olympics, a record set by Soviet gymnast Aleksandr Dityatin at the U.S.-boycotted Moscow Games.

Crocker would have to start with a cannonball to blow this one; the Americans have never lost an Olympic medley relay. But stranger things have happened.

Stranger things like an American superstar benching himself for the final night of his Olympic meet.

"He's on fire at this meet," Crocker said of Phelps, before Phelps extinguished his own flame.

"The most difficult part (after the relay) was just getting back on the horse," Crocker said of his own meet.

He is a Bob Dylan fanatic from Maine, where not even a single 50-meter pool exists. Exhausted and eliminated, Phelps will cheer Crocker from the same stands where Spitz had cheered Phelps.

"It's tough to give up the relay; it really is," Phelps said. "But Ian is one of the greatest relay swimmers in the world."

Ian is also a rival and friend who was just given another lift back on that horse. Michael Phelps won't tie Spitz's seven gold medals, and he won't grab that Speedo bonus.

But he left the pool as the biggest winner of the Olympics, if only because he made his teammate feel like a million bucks.

Ian O'Connor also writes for The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News